With a month to go, FY16 bed taxes beat FY15

TAMPA (Sept. 14, 2016) – With a month left in its budget year, Visit Tampa Bay has officially surpassed Fiscal Year 2015’s record bed-tax collections for Hillsborough County.

The August total for the county’s Tourism Development Collections (aka the bed tax) reached $2.24 million, up 13.4 percent from the same period in 2015. The August report reflects hotel and short-term accommodations sold in July. The bed tax is a 5 percent levy on those stays.

August’s figure brings the total for the first 11 months of Fiscal Year 2016 to $27.6 million, about $740,000 more than the entire collection for FY2015. The fiscal year ends September 30.

July proved to be a stellar month for leisure, transient and convention sales, said Santiago Corrada, President & CEO of Visit Tampa Bay.

“The strength of the August report puts us that much closer to our goal of reaching $30 million in bed taxes for the year – and breaking into the ranks of the state’s High Impact Tourism counties,” Corrada said. “Tampa Bay’s continuing growth as a global tourism location is a testament to the hard work of our team and the dedication of our hundreds of partners across the destination.”